With this incident practically ended the whole two years' episode of attempting to take the Parliament into partnership with the executive by means of a voluntary and unde fined surrender of prerogative. Had the king allowed the members of the Council of War to answer the interrogatories of the House the principle of ministerial responsibility (that is, the responsibility of the executive to the Par liament, and not to the king alone) would have stood forth in abrupt nakedness. When Charles resisted that demand the emergence of such a principle was postponed for a century. For be it borne in mind, the impeachment of Bucking ham, and the later proceedings against Straf ford, Clarendon and Danby never advanced the enunciation of that principle a jot. The mere punishment of a minister great or small does not imply ministerial responsibility in our sense of the phrase. All through the 17th century the ministers were the king's servants and were responsible to him, their master, alone. After the exile of Clarendon the Commons did not demand to be consulted as to the choice of his successor, or as to the policy of his successor.
Charles had simply sacrificed one of his serv ants. That was all. Then he engaged another servant to do exactly the same things and went on as gay and as unconcerned as before.
But had the episode of 1624-26 ended differ ently the acceptance of the principle of the re sponsibility of ministers to Parliament as well as to Crown would have led inevitably to the forging of some such link between the execu tive and the legislative as only came generations later. From the moment such a link had been forged questions of adequate supply for the services and of a proper audit, and again ques tions of the personal liberty of the subject, of habeas corpus, and what not, would have solved themselves harmoniously. For the participation of the Parliament in the executive would have insensibly tinged the spirit of the whole admin istration of the country. As compared with the evolution of such a principle the petition of right, habeas corpus, nay, even the revolution itself, are minor incidents.
The remainder of the reign of Charles I, when he ruled without a Parliament, the out break of the Civil War, and the consequent military despotism of Cromwell are devoid of constitutional significance. The rule of Oliver Cromwell was a despotism as pure as that of the Tudors, the only difference being that the prerogative of the Crown, which had formed the ultimate sanction of the executive government of James I and Charles I was replaced by the naked power of the sword. The quarrels be tween Oliver and his Parliaments were in sub stance and essence the same which had been fought between Charles and his Parliaments. They one and all turned upon the question as to whether and how far the Parliament, the legis lative; should thrust itself into the domain of the executive, notably, of course, but not solely, in the matter of the command of the forces. To
any such demand Oliver's reply was a much more peremptory, indignant, instanteous non possumus than ever James or Charles could have uttered. And when the sword fell from his dying grasp and the succeeding anarchy swept away the chances alike of • his dynasty and of pure republicanism, the Great Rebellion had become a mere tale that is told. When Charles II returned at the Restoration in 1660 the Stuart dynasty reassumed the inheritance of an undiminished prerogative, one that is in no whit distinguishable from the prerogative wielded by Elizabeth, James I, or Charles I. He was granted a revenue for life which might, had it been fully realized and carefully hus banded, have made him independent of the Par liament. He was left in uncontrolled possession of the executive. His ministers were his own, nominated by him and responsible alone to him. His revenue was his own, to spend as he pleased, without the slightest restriction in the way of appropriation. His foreign policy was his own, he could make war or peace or treaty unques tioned, and as he chose. Had it not been for the outbreak of the Dutch War it is probable that his reign would have witnessed no parlia mentary incursion upon his prerogative. As it was, when under the strain of the shame caused by the first Dutch War the Parliament did actually make an incursion into the domain of the executive, the novel departure took ex actly the same form which it had taken in 1624 under James I. No more speaking comment than this could be passed upon the fruitlessness and futility of the intervening period of civil war, regicide and revolution.
The full story of the episode in question is too long to be given here. It has been treated fully in the introduction of the second volume of the 'Calendar of Treasury Books.' In brief, what happened was this: With the full con sent of the executive (Charles himself) the Parliament in voting supply for the Dutch War appropriated that supply specifically to that war. The necessary corollary was that a few months afterward the Commons were driven to demand an account of the expenditure of that supply. Had the war been successful there would have been no boggling over such an account. But the war had not been successful. It had brought with it disaster and humiliation, and men's minds were correspond ingly inflamed. But even so, the action of the Commons was astonishingly mild. Although the inquiry might have led the Commons to cover the whole field of administration and to question the whole conduct of the executive during the war, the Parliament practically in the end restricted its attention to the question of the auditing of the accounts. Charles at first resisted the proposal as a breach on his prerogatives; but in the finish, with his usual subtle adroitness, he gave way.